


The Five Times Jaina and Tahiri Talked and the One Time They Didn't

by ezrah



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezrah/pseuds/ezrah
Summary: Tahiri has been unable to get over the death Anakin Solo, her first love. She finds solace in Jaina Solo and learns that Jaina has her own struggles as well. As they grow closer, a budding love springs up between the pair. But can it survive the inner struggles and turmoil of the two?





	1. Time One-"Not Your Fault"

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about this chapter being so short. The next one should be longer.

Tahiri was simply staring out into the open void the clear window presented before her. Emotionless. Flat. Grey. All of these could be used to describe the once-vibrant girl with frizzy hair. She should have kissed him. It was always on her mind, but today it was more present. If she had kissed Anakin, it would be different. He had importuned her to kiss him. If she had stopped him, he would be standing next to her right now with the last name Veila-Solo. She would be part of the Solo-Skywalker clan. But no. Her eyes gazed downward, glazing over with tempestuous emotion. So her deleterious decision had rendered her helpless. Helpless had never been a word to describe Tahiri. She had been fierce once. Determined. Full of life and not one to let things slide. Not even for Anakin. Anakin...

 

Tahiri, so lost and drowning in thought, took no notice of the young woman coming up from behind with a tenacious look upon her face. She stopped just before reaching the dark-skinned girl from Tatooine with no shoes and brown and blonde hair.

 

“Hello, Tahiri.” Short-haired Jaina gave Tahiri a friendly smile. 

 

Shame. That was the first emotion Tahiri felt amongst the feeling bubbling up inside her. Was this to be an aspersion? Despite the much less than ominous smile? Tahiri had come to expect one-after all, she had been a Sith. No matter who she was before-a Jedi, a hero, someone of worth-nobody would ever see her as anything more as the girl so lovesick she turned to the Dark Side. And for that, Tahiri prickled with a shame so deep it cut to her core.

 

“Jaina.”

 

The Sword of the Jedi was not one for subtlety.

 

“What’s on your mind?”

 

“The same thing as always. Anakin.”

 

Jaina involuntarily flinched as she always did when anyone spoke of her valiant brother which came with his violent end. Jaina missed him like the sea would miss the salt if it were taken away. There would be no one like Anakin, no one with his effulgence, no one with his spirit. Every mention of him was more painful than the last, like a piercing knife to her soul. But at least she could properly mourn his loss, like Chewie's and Mara's. Mara. Jacen. Caedus. Jaina closed her eyes and for an awful moment, the darkness threatened to consume her. Then the tomboyish girl blinked and regained her composure. 

 

“I should have kissed him.”

 

Jaina’s brow corrugated to the simian look of worriment. “Tahiri-”

 

“I should have. Maybe-maybe then he would have thought to stay behind. For me.” Her bottom lip trembled and for a terrible moment, everything stood still.

 

Then Jaina moved forward and Tahiri fell into her arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. “E-everything-g r-r-reminds m-me of h-him.”

 

Jaina stroked the top of her head softly and whispered into her ear. “I know. Me too. I see him in every sunset, in every beautiful flower, in every child’s laughter, and in each happy song. Anakin will never leave us, Tahiri. He would never blame you for not kissing him. I don’t care what my-what Caedus said.” 

 

The older girl squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to cry for the terrible deed that the oh-so-great Luke Skywalker had thrust upon her. She had killed her brother. Her twin. Her closest friend. And-and his last act was to call out and warn Tenel Ka. The Hapan Queen had told her so. And his child-her twin brother’s child-was someone she saw every day. A child who would know no father. Because of her. Her eyes prickled with tears again, odd for Jaina. Yet the truth stared her dead in the face. 

 

Jacen Solo was gone. Anakin Solo was gone. They were never coming back. They never would come back. The two Solo brothers were gone. Jaina and Tahiri were all that remained.


	2. Time Two-"Nightmares"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes solace comes from the most innocent of experiences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a beta reader, so I apologize for any grammatical errors. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

_“No. You’ll have to come back for that,” Tahiri was saying._

 

_Anakin’s normally kind face shifted to a look of vicious contempt._

 

_“You might as well have killed me.”_

 

_“Anakin!” Tahiri called out as he began to walk away, that fateful walk from which he would never return from._

 

_“I’m not coming back for you. I’m never coming back for you.”_

 

A scream vociferously escaped her throat as Tahiri sat up. Sweat dripped down her back and she breathed in and out a few times to calm herself. Her antipathy to the nightmares only seemed to make them more assiduous. Her walls were grey. Everything seemed grey, devoid of the cacophony of her screams and shrieks. Her eye glanced towards her window. It was still night. A grey, still night pierced only by her distress. Trying to imagine what Anakin would say to comfort her was like watching grains of sand slip through her fingers. Or her attempts to draw trees once she saw them. The sunlight streaming through was something she would try to sketch on paper, but it would fade away as quickly as it had come, leaving on faint outlines on the paper.

 

“Come on Tahiri,” she instructed herself. “Let’s walk.”

 

She sat up and pushed her covers off of her and felt her feet hit the cool floor. The sensation steadied her as its familiarity rose up inside her and reminded her of a better time. A time when she had been the shoeless strange kid and an ebullient boy with a shy smile befriended her. No. Tahiri covered her eyes. She mustn’t think of that now. Not of the funeral, of them burning Anakin while she was forced to watch her love go up in flames. Never to be seen again. They hadn’t even bothered to ask her when in fact, Anakin was hers. His imagination, creativity, strength, compassion, his special smile and the way his eyes lit up...and they decided to burn him while Tahiri was thinking of what Anakin would like best to be laid to rest in. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to think that just because the Solo-Skywalker clan took the death better than she did. It didn’t mean that they didn’t care. It just meant that she was weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. The egregious chant overwhelmed her and she slid down the floor against one of her grey walls. The color of hopelessness and worn, tired smiles and empty hands with nothing to give, and the wide-open eyes of a dead boy that had once been ice blue- Stop, Tahiri thought to herself, once again almost overcome with grief. Anakin-Anakin wouldn’t want her to be like this. Like a torn jacket sleeve where the strings were hanging on by thread.

 

Stand up. Shakily, Tahiri rose to her feet, keeping one hand against the wall. She was careful not to look at it. One step. Tahiri put her foot forward, feeling the coolness of the tile. _That’s right. You’re right here._ She kept stepping until she was out the door, leaving it hanging open like a gaping tooth. The long hallway stretched in front of her, but she saw a light streaming out from down the hall. Slowly, she maneuvered past several rooms-one with a fetid stench-finally to the window. But someone else had gotten their first. J

 

aina didn’t seem to notice her at first. Tahiri hesitantly stepped forward, her practiced feet not making a sound.

 

But Jaina, strong with the Force, had sensed her awakening. “Sit down. You’re probably tired.”

 

Tahiri dropped down on the opposite side of the window and leaned back against the the wall, the coolness again calming her. And she couldn’t see it in the dark. Hopefully it wasn’t grey. A silence fell as Jaina and Tahiri looked out the window. The skyline was alit with lights from other buildings and from the occasional speeder racing by.

 

“Do you ever…” Tahiri hesitated. Would Jaina laugh? No, this was Jaina. Jaina was rarely laughing these days. “Get nightmares?”

 

Jaina turned to her and Tahiri panicked.” “I’m sorry-it’s dumb-I just-”

 

“No-no, I get them two. My little brothers, they’re always there.” Jaina paused, thinking of the haunting nightmares that left her in a cold sweat when dawn broke and started her day off with bad memories. There was Anakin, shrieking at her for not being a good big sister and letting him die as a child. Then Jacen would appear, begging her not to kill him and she would watch as she did it anyway. Worst of all was the amount of times she would see Anakin reliving his last moments. Over and over. It never seemed to stop. Each time he would scream one last time with his eyes black and bruised with pain. Sometimes she would have to watch the Yuuzhan Vong torture her little brothers. It was a pain she felt down to her bones.

 

“I feel...like I wasn’t a good enough big sister.”

 

Tahiri stared at her in astoundment. “Jaina, you’re a wonderful big sister. Anakin always spoke very highly of you.”

 

Jaina almost blushed. “Thank you.”

 

The two fell back into silence. What was there to say? The two were seemingly broken beyond repair like a mangled arm that would never go back into the socket correctly. Hopeless. Futile. Why try at all? In the back of Tahiri’s mind, she knew the reason to try. Because Anakin was watching. His ice blue eyes were probably gazing upon her right now, maybe welled up with tears. Maybe he was even screaming.

 

Tahiri jolted up and Jaina’s head turned at the sudden movement. “Do you think they’re watching?”

 

Jaina nodded. “It’s likely, given-”

 

“I mean, what do you want to think? You always were the literal one.”

 

“Except when Anakin went through that literal phase while I was having piloting dreams, Jaina corrected her with a wry grin. “But yes, I do want to think they are. What would you say to him, if he was here watching, just beyond the shadows?”

 

Tahiri paused, thinking it over. “That I’m sorry. And that I love him.”

 

Jaina nodded. “Me too. I just want the nightmare to be over. I’m tired of watching him be in pain and being unable to do a thing about it.” Jaina had always hated things she couldn’t do anything about.

 

“Jaina, I-I’m so sorry. I never should have listened to Jacen.”

 

Jaina just shrugged. “He manipulated you. There’s no reason to apologize to me. I’m the one who killed him and I may as well have killed Anakin.”

 

“The Vong did that, not you,” Tahiri argued, her brow furrowing.

 

“Yes, but I wasn’t looking after him like a big sister should.”

 

“How could you? It was a suicide mission and we all knew it. We all knew somebody wasn’t coming back. I just was hoping it wasn’t going to be Nik.”

 

Jaina let out a shaky and distorted breath, a crack in her normally calm demeanor. “That mission...I hated Luke for a long time for sending us. And my parents for agreeing. I blamed them for Nik and Jasa not coming back. For Zekk leaving. And just when I thought I could get over blaming myself and them...Luke told me to end the life of my twin. My best friend. My other half.”

 

Nik and Jasa and Jaya. The dream team, broken apart by the fragility of the galaxy. All that was left was unfulfilled dreams and grey walls devoid of life and light.

 

“Do you hate Grandmaster Luke?”

 

“Right now? No. Do you?”

 

“I’m indebted to him for forgiving me. And to his child. No. I don’t hate him at all.”

 

“Ben? He told me about you. Luke’s still training him, but I help out sometimes.” Then Jaina laughed. It was not genuine. “Shocking, huh? Only half the Solo-Skywalker kids made it. Me and Ben. The survivors.”

 

“Allana made it. Tenel Ka. I’m still here. It’s not just you and Ben, alone on your depression iceberg.”

 

“I would still say only Allana and Ben made it. They’re the only ones with a shred of happiness left. You know Luke’s never been the same since Mara...since Mara...and mom and dad stopped working right when Nik…”

 

There wasn’t much Tahiri could say to that. Everything had started to fall apart when Anakin ran to face the Yuuzhan Vong and all that came back was a body.

 

“Zekk? The rest of the strike team? There’s got to be some of us left.”

 

“Alema…” Jaina’s face contorted into a look of pure rage. “Luke _said_ he _knew_ she would go to the Dark Side, but did nothing about it. Next he’ll be telling us he knew he sent Anakin to die. And Zekk...I don’t care who he’s with now, the only person I think he really loved died by my hand.”

 

“I was jealous of Alema,” Tahiri admitted. “She liked Nik too.”

 

“Nik was always so oblivious,” Jaina recalled fondly.

 

Outside, it began to to rain. The sound was oddly soothing to the two girls.

 

“Maybe it’s about time we do something fun,” Tahri began at the same time as Jaina went “I didn’t want to go to the funeral.”

 

Tahiri paused. “You first.”

 

Jaina sighed. “Kyp Durron made me go. I almost didn’t. I just couldn’t face it and...and I didn’t want to see him go up in smoke. Now, how do we go about doing something fun?”

 

“I think it’s time to be kids again.”

 

Tahiri stood up and Jaina followed suit. The two girls began to walk down the hall.

 

“I don’t like the grey,” Tahiri admitted.

 

“Me neither.”

 

They descended down a few flights of stairs, sometimes racing to get to the bottom. Their thudding feet caused a few shouts from rooms near the stairs to which the girls would giggle like they were young Jedi Knights again, preoccupied with mini-adventures and bedtime stories and crushes. Finally, they reached the outside.

 

“Puddle jumping?” Jaina asked and Tahiri nodded.

 

The two girls ran down the duracrete walkway, jumping into puddles and laughing like kids when the water splashed up on them. It was late enough that hardly anyone was around so no odd looks were thrown their way since two grown women, Jedi no less, puddle jumping was a sight for sore eyes. As they reached the end of the walkway, their laughter and shouts died down.

 

“I was thinking,” Jaina began bluntly, “that we could sleep together.”

 

Tahiri almost gasped. “Wha-what?”

 

Jaina punched her in the shoulder. “Not like that. We’re probably going to have nightmares again and it would be nice to have company.”

 

“Oh.” Tahiri offered her a tentative smiled, embarrassed. “Alright. Sounds good to me. Can we do it in your room? I don’t like mine very much.”

 

“Sure,” Jaina agreed. “Grey walls, huh?”

 

Tahiri nodded and the two turned to head back inside, soaking wet. The two walked more quietly up the stairs and Tahiri stopped by her room to get clothes before heading to Jaina’s room. For a moment, Tahiri wondered if Jaina had stayed here because she was here. Or maybe it was to avoid all the rest of the Jedi, especially her parents and Luke and maybe even Ben. Once Tahiri came back to Jaina’s room, she found Jaina drying her hair with a towel. Tahiri stood awkwardly in the doorway until Jaina noticed and beckoned for her to come inside.

 

“Where do you want me to change?” Tahiri asked.

 

“Just change here, we’re both girls here. I’m not gonna learn anything new.”

 

Jaina boldly took off her soaking shirt and dug into her drawers for another one. Tahiri blinked. Jaina was toned and defined and Tahiri could hardly look away. Thankfully, Jaina didn’t notice and Tahiri tore her eyes away before Jaina turned around.

 

“Well?” Tahiri turned and began to change into dry clothes. They were dull and grey like everything else. Tahiri hated them, but at least no one made her wear shoes. Least of all Jaina. Once she had changed, Tahiri turned around. Jaina was only in short and a very thin shirt while Tahiri was more modestly dressed.

 

“Climb in.” Jaina gestured to the bed. “I’ll get the lights.”

 

Tahiri made her way towards the tiny and bed and climbed in. It was warm and cozy with Jaina’s lovely scent lingering on the blankets. Jaina crawled in with her and few moments later and soon, the two girls had drifted closer together and fell asleep with their legs and arms touching.


End file.
